Mission Engineering Guide

1 Mission Engineering Guide November 2020 Office of the Deputy Director for Engineering Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Washington, DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited. Mission Engineering Guide Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering 3030 Defense Pentagon Washington, DC 20301 Distribution Statement A. Approved for public release. Distribution is by Sandra H. Magnus Deputy Director for Engineering Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Date Mission Engineering Guide Change Record Date Change Rationale This page is intentionally Engineering Guide v CONTENTS 1 1 Guide Objectives .. 1 Mission Engineering Overview .. 1 2 Mission Engineering Approach and Methodology .. 5 Problem Statement Identifying the Key Questions.

2 6 Mission Definition and Characterization .. 6 Time Frame .. 8 Mission Scenarios and Vignettes .. 9 Assumptions and Constraints .. 10 Mission Definition Summary .. 11 Mission Metrics (Measures of Success and Effectiveness) .. 12 Selecting Measures of Effectiveness .. 14 Traceability of Metrics .. 16 Design of Analysis .. 17 Mission Architectures .. 17 Define Mission Thread and Mission Engineering Thread .. 19 Define and Gather Supporting Models, Data, and Analytics .. 20 Perform Analysis/Run Models .. 23 Document the Study and Conclusions .. 25 Analysis Report / Decisional Briefings .. 26 Reference Architecture .. 26 Curated Data, Models, and Architectures .. 28 Appendix A: Government Mission Reference Architecture (GMRA) (Template) .. 29 Appendix B: Government Capability Reference Architecture (GCRA) (Template) .. 32 Definitions.

3 36 Acronyms .. 40 References .. 41 Mission Engineering Guide vi Figures Figure 1-1. Consumers of Mission Engineering Outputs .. 2 Figure 1-2. Three Axes of Mission Engineering .. 4 Figure 2-1. Mission Engineering Approach and Methodology .. 5 Figure 2-2. Mission Characterization and Mission Metrics .. 8 Figure 2-3. Mission Definition Elements and Identified Metrics .. 10 Figure 2-4. Relationship of Measures .. 12 Figure 2-5. Hierarchy Examples of MOEs and MOPs .. 14 Figure 2-6. Succession of Measures .. 15 Figure 2-7. Example of Mission Engineering Thread and Associated MOEs and MOPs .. 17 Figure 2-8. Tenets of Mission Architecture .. 18 Figure 2-9. An Architecture of Mission Threads .. 19 Figure 2-10. Example Models for Use in Mission Engineering .. 21 Figure 2-11. Mission Engineering Analysis .. 23 Figure 2-12. Examples Types of Analysis.

4 24 Figure 2-13. Integration and Trades of Mission Threads and Capabilities .. 27 Tables Table 2-1. Categories of Mission Definition .. 11 Table 2-2. Examples of MOEs and MOPs .. 13 1 Introduction Mission Engineering Guide 1 1 INTRODUCTION Guide Objectives This Guide describes the foundational elements and the overall methodology of Department of Defense (DoD) Mission Engineering (ME), including a set of ME terms and definitions that should be part of the common Engineering parlance for studies and analyses, building upon already accepted sources and documentation from the stakeholder community in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), Joint Staff, Services, and Combatant Commands. The Guide will: Describe the main attributes of DoD ME and how to apply them to add technical andengineering rigor into the ME analysis process; Enable practitioners to formulate problems, and build understanding of the main principlesinvolved in performing analysis in a Mission context; and Provide users with insight as to how to document and portray results or conclusions in aset of products that help inform key Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) prepared the Guide for both novice and experienced practitioners across DoD and industry.

5 The Guide is a living document that will evolve in parallel with Engineering best practices. The authors will continuously mature the Guide to include relevant information to conduct Mission -focused analyses and studies in support of maturing new joint warfighting concepts, warfighter integration, and interoperability of systems of systems (SoS), as tools and infrastructure evolve to support ME. Mission Engineering Overview The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2017, Section 855, directed DoD to establish Mission Integration Management (MIM) as a core activity within the acquisition, Engineering , and operational communities to focus on the integration of elements that are all centered around the Mission . The DoD Joint Publication 3-0 (Joint Operations) defines Mission as the task, together with the purpose, that clearly indicates the action to be taken and the reason thereby.

6 More simply, a Mission is a duty assigned to an individual or unit. OUSD(R&E) defines MIM as the synchronization, management, and coordination of concepts, activities, technologies, requirements, programs, and budget plans to Guide key decisions focused on the end-to-end Mission . ME is the technical sub-element of MIM as a means to provide engineered Mission -based outputs to the requirements process, Guide prototypes, provide design options, and inform investment decisions. 1 Introduction Mission Engineering Guide 2 The DoD report to Congress on MIM (March 2018) and the Defense Acquisition Guidebook (DAG) define ME as the deliberate planning, analyzing, organizing, and integrating of current and emerging operational and system capabilities to achieve desired warfighting Mission effects. ME is a top-down approach that delivers Engineering results to identify enhanced capabilities, technologies, system interdependencies, and architectures to Guide development, prototypes, experiments, and SoS to achieve reference missions and close Mission capability gaps.

7 ME uses systems and SoS in an operational Mission context to inform stakeholders about building the right things, not just building things right, by guiding capability maturation to address warfighter Mission needs. Figure 1-1 illustrates the various consumers of ME products from concepts to capability development to acquisition. Figure 1 1. Consumers of Mission Engineering Outputs ME uses validated Mission definitions and trustworthy and curated data sets as the basis for analyses to answer a set of operational or tactical questions. Shared assessments of conclusions and understanding of analysis inputs helps leadership pursue the best course of action for decisions in support of the warfighter and joint Mission . Key questions for the ME process include the following: What is the Mission ?

8 What are its boundaries and how must it interact with other missions? What are its performance measures? 1 Introduction Mission Engineering Guide 3 What are the Mission capability gaps? How can new capabilities change the way we fight? What do changes in capabilities or systems mean to missions and architectures? What is the sensitivity of the Mission performance to the performance of the constituenttechnology, products, and capabilities? How do the new capabilities best integrate with, orreplace, legacy systems? And how do we optimize that balance to provide the most lethaland affordable integrated capabilities for any particular Mission ?The major products from ME analyses include the following: (1)Documented results in the form of analytical reports, curated data, and models forcontinued reuse and further analysis;(2)Visualizations and briefings to inform leadership on key decisions; and(3)Government Reference Architectures (GRAs) (in the form of diagramed depictions ofmissions and interactions among elements associated with missions and capabilities).

9 Together, these products identify and quantify Mission capability gaps and help focus attention on technological solutions to meet future Mission needs, inform requirements, and support capability portfolio management. It is essential that ME analyses be consistent both within themselves and with previous relevant studies using the same scenarios, assumptions, constraints, system attributes, and data curated periodically or as necessary based on source updates. It is also essential to keep track of the sources of data and the requirements used as inputs for the analysis. Digital Engineering principles should be used when conducting ME as they can help promote consistency in the ME process through the effective use and reuse of curated data and models along with identification and utilization of digital tools throughout ME analyses.

10 Digital Engineering is an essential foundational element of ME that allows for sustainment of Mission threads (MTs) and architectures, integrated analytical capabilities, common Mission representations, and an extensible set of tools. As illustrated in Figure 1-2, ME is a balancing act among the time frame, analytical rigor to be used, and the complexity of the problem to be addressed. Reaching too far in one or more dimensions, say predicting outcomes 50 years in the future or increasing the complexity of the Mission to be addressed, will impact the confidence-level that can be expected in the ME products. It can also affect the rigor and validity of the analytics based on the availability and accessibility of data. 1 Introduction Mission Engineering Guide 4 Figure 1 2.